Containers such as those commonly called cases are used in many industries. For instance, cases are used by the food, beverage, baking and other industries to deliver products such as in bottles or the like to stores and other types of customers. These cases are of a returnable type and are reused many times. The cases become dirty and for sanitary reasons are frequently washed in some manner after a number of uses. These cases are primarily made of plastic material and extensively ribbed to strengthen the case and yet permit the case to be manufactured with the minimum use of plastic.
There are existing case washers in the marketplace. However, these present case washers have a number of deficiencies. To wash the cases effectively, the present case washers use heated water and/or chemical agents. Heated water usage is expensive and not highly effective in dirt removal. The addition of chemical agents is also expensive and increases the necessary manual supervision time and adds to the complexity of the process because of the need to control the entry and exit of the chemical effluent.
It is also desirable to remove water from the cases before exiting from the case washer or cleaning apparatus. Present drying systems associated with a container cleaning apparatus use fan air circulation to remove excess water from the cases. Because of the pockets on the cases due to the extensive ribbing on the cases, the circulating air drying is deficient and does not thoroughly result in the liquid being removed from the surface of the cases.
The present invention avoids the use of hot water and/or chemicals and yet thoroughly cleans the cases. In addition, it greatly overcomes the drying deficiency and resulting effective removal of liquid from the surface of the container being cleaned including containers such as cases with irregular surfaces caused by extensive ribbing and the like.